Poetic Justice (10 page)

“Mrs. Airhart, whose field is contemporary drama, refers to a speech by a character called Lucky in
Waiting for Godot
: those of you interested in the reference may have time to look it up this evening if this meeting is allowed to get on with its agenda. I congratulate Mrs. Airhart on the appositeness of her remarks, and remind Mr. Plimsole that the question of teaching assistants occupying buildings is properly the business of the Committee on Graduate Studies. I would like to put before
this
committee the promotion of Professors Levy
and Genero, presently teaching in the University College.” He sat down as abruptly as he had stood up. Kate grinned. She remembered, as no doubt did all her colleagues, Lucky’s speech, which, while it made less syntactical sense than Mr. Plimsole’s, achieved at least the adumbration of significance.

Carrier’s remark, as was inevitable, brought Jeremiah Cudlipp to his feet. “If Mr. Plimsole’s contentions are misplaced before this committee, and I agree that they are [glare at Mr. Plimsole which Kate wanted to regret for his sake, but could not], so are those of Mr. Cartier. Assistant professors teaching in the University College cannot be considered for tenure by this committee until it is established that the University College is, in fact, a continuing part of the University. I suggest that it is not a continuing part, and ought not so to be considered by this committee.” He sat down. Kate heaved a sigh. The fat was in the fire or, as McQuire would have said, the four-letter-word-bathroom had hit the fan. Michaels, the chairman, giggled, rustled his papers, and drew in his breath to speak. In vain. Clemance had risen to his feet.

“I support Professor Cudlipp,” he said, as though that might be news to anyone, “but,” and every head in the room came expectantly up, “I think perhaps we ought honestly to confront the problem before us. I have a sense of polarization having divided this committee, and that sense is profoundly disturbing to me. I think we ought to listen to what Professor Cartier has to say, and indeed to what any of us may have to say on this question, even if we cannot today vote to recommend the
promotion of people in a school which may not for long exist.”

At this precise moment—it was probably not planned that way, but Kate wouldn’t put it past them—the door opened and Robert O’Toole entered. The myrmidons were gathering. Kate looked at Clemance. Why, she thought, is your conscience bothering you? Bless you. Robert O’Toole’s thoughts, however, were clearly far from wishing to convey a blessing.

“I’m afraid I can’t agree with Frederick,” O’Toole said, calling Clemance by his first name. “It seems to me inevitable that his great-heartedness should lead him to such a sense of openness, and equally inevitable that we, his more narrow-minded friends, should recall him to the fundamental accuracy of things.”

Professor Carrier again rose to his feet. “Mr. O’Toole’s ability to answer questions he hasn’t heard is certainly worthy of admiration. I should like to repeat my recommendation that we consider for possible promotion Professor Levy. He has done excellent work in the Victorian field, and if I understand correctly departmental needs at the moment, we could use a man in the Victorian period.”

“I thought Professor Levy’s book on Wilkie Collins excellent,” Michaels said. “Have any of the rest of you read it?”

“I have,” O’Toole said, extending his arms from his French cuffs and examining his fingernails. “It’s a good enough book in its way, modest, unexceptional, competent, but small in its ambition. One can’t condemn it nor, I think, is one inclined to praise it extravagantly.” At this point someone tapped Kate’s shoulder and handed
her a note; it said, “Whatever that pompous s.o.b. is for, I’m against. EA.” Kate grinned her appreciation of the sentiments expressed, and stuffed the paper into her purse. Several senior professors now began to argue about Mr. Levy’s book and Kate, sensing some moments’ respite, rested her eyes on Clemance. Was O’Toole, in a sense, a comment on Frederick Clemance, an inevitable commentary which now, like the notes to “The Waste Land,” had to be considered along with the original document? O’Toole had been one of Clemance’s most brilliant, most loved students, and had returned the affection wholeheartedly, not least by adopting every mannerism of Clemance’s for his own. But he could never learn to temper his arrogance as Clemance had learned. Or would he learn in time? When Kate had first known Clemance, after all, when she had first sat in his seminar, Clemance had been almost as near to fifty as O’Toole was now to forty. Could ten years make that much difference? Kate doubted it.

The news of O’Toole’s deanship was apparently not yet general. But that O’Toole had himself decided that the success of his tenure depended upon the demise of the University College was beyond question. At this point Professor Peter Packer Pollinger could be heard sputtering through his mustache; slowly the group’s attention focused on him. “Why’s he against it?” Professor Pollinger was asking the world in general.

“Are you addressing me, sir?” Clemance mildly asked.

“ ‘What is it that is moving so softly to and fro?’ I asked,” Professor Pollinger said.

Clemance regarded Professor Pollinger as though,
were sufficient attention paid, some meaning might be discerned; the hope, however, proved illusory. “Is that a quotation,” he patiently asked, “perhaps from some misty Maeterlinck-like drama?” This question, which was not intended to be, and was not delivered as though it were, insulting, aroused Professor Peter Packer Pollinger to the highest reaches of indignation.

“Mist be damned,” he said. “It is a question of symbolism, whoever you are. Same as the English toward the Irish; pure snobbism. That adult college is a symbol to you, and you and you,” he nodded, causing his mustache to quiver as he indicated Clemance, Cudlipp, and O’Toole. “I know the reason. Cudlipp went to University College himself when it was still just a group of extension courses, after they threw him out of the College and before they took him back. I thought Levy’s book large and exceptional, and I am inclined to praise it extravagantly. You,” he said to O’Toole, “are lost in an obscure wood.” He puffed again through his mustache, leaving his on the whole pleased audience to infer that the obscure wood occurred in one of Miss Macleod’s misty dramas.

“Surely,” Clemance continued, “we are wandering rather from the point. At least,” he added, anticipating another outburst, “from my point. Whatever our views may be on the University College, they are not the most germane points to be made at the present time. The Administrative Council has, I believe, undertaken to study the needs of the University as a whole. Doubtless we will all be asked to present our points of view, if any. Meanwhile, it seems to me perhaps irregular to consider promoting to tenure assistant professors whose
service is entirely in a school whose future in the University is problematical.”

Are you just trying to smooth it all over? Kate thought. She wondered if Peter Packer Pollinger’s allegations against Cudlipp could possibly be true. Interesting. Professor Goddard, who taught medieval literature and whose specialty was
Piers Plowman
, rose to his feet.

“I don’t follow Professor Clemance’s reasoning at all. In the first place, it is our business to promote people on the basis of their ability and possible service to the Department, not on the future of any school in the University. In the second place, I am on the Council to which Professor Clemance refers, and I don’t think I’m betraying any confidences by saying that the Council is also studying whether or not The College has a place today in an urban university like this, whose reputation has been made largely through its graduate offerings. I don’t mind saying that my own inclination is to consider that a college for adults is more to the point in New York than a college for overgrown schoolboys from whose ranks, I need not remind all of you, came most of the instigators of last spring’s disturbances.”

Into the awed silence which followed this remark Kate spoke. “I wondered,” she said, “how many of us here do, in fact, have students from University College in our classes. The College, as we know, has always avoided cross-listing courses with the Graduate School, but I have only recently learned that University College does, in fact, encourage students to enter many of our courses. How many here do have University College students in their classes?”

“I might add,” Michaels said, “that such a show of
hands will be unofficial, and its results not recorded in our minutes. Is it all right with you, Professor Fansler, if your question remains unrecorded too?”

“Certainly,” Kate said. “I asked it for my own information, and so that I might follow it with another question, also off the record if you like, at least for the present: How good are those students?”

Tentatively at first, and then with more assurance as the number of hands in the air increased, the professors indicated the presence of University College students in their classes. Professor Peter Packer Pollinger was of course one of the first to raise a triumphant hand, whether because he knew it would annoy Clemance, or because he had found a Macleod admirer was not, nor ever likely to be, clear. “And have you found them to be good students, or poor students, or merely satisfactory?”

“I object,” Cudlipp shouted, running a hand over his bald head. He had a habit of throwing back his bald head as though he had, in fact, long hair which dangled in his eyes. “The question is irrelevant.”

“Nonsense,” Professor Goddard shouted. “
Piers Plowman
may, as my students persistently tell me, lack relevancy, but if you are damning a part of this University to extinction, I fail to see how it can be irrelevant to discuss the quality of its students. Perhaps Professor Cudlipp can enlighten me.”

“Before Professor Cudlipp enlightens us,” Michaels, the chairman, said, “may I be allowed a few words? I don’t know if you are aware that I am running this Department, which is twice as big as the Business School, and almost twice as large as the Law School, with no administrative staff whatever—the Law School, I may
remind you, has five deans, the Business School six—and I am teaching two courses in Victorian poets at the same time. Mr. Levy, whom, because he is in my field, I know better than I know Mr. Genero, would be able to help me considerably not only with my dissertation load, but with certain administrative tasks in the department. Though none of you can be expected to know it, Mr. Levy is a first-rate administrator. If we are to promote people on the basis of their usefulness to the English Department, I would like to point out that, whatever the abilities of the students in the University College, Mr. Levy is to be highly recommended.”

“I would like to second that,” Mark Everglade said. “Mr. Genero, as it happens, is in my field, which is Comparative Renaissance, he is fluent in Italian and speaks and reads five other languages as well, and if I am to continue as Secretary I would like to suggest that his usefulness to me can scarcely be overestimated. Let me add, while I have the floor, that the students from University College who have been in my classes have been first-rate and have been, compared to the boys from the College, possessed of a higher degree of motivation and a considerably lower degree of arrogance.”

Cudlipp leaped to his feet. “I move that this meeting be adjourned,” he shouted.

“I second the motion,” O’Toole said.

“Now wait a minute,” Carrier shouted.

“Motions for adjournment are not debatable,” Cudlipp announced. Indeed, the faculty had learned Robert’s Rules of Order in recent months.

“We shall have to take a vote,” Michaels said. “All in
favor of adjournment signify by saying ‘Aye.’ ” There was a loud chorus of “Ayes.” “Opposed.”

“No,” several voices trumpeted.

“The ‘Ayes’ have it,” Michaels said. “This meeting is adjourned.” He gathered up his papers and marched from the room lest any inclination to continue the discussion manifest itself.

“Interesting,” Kate said to Mark Everglade, “and thanks for your support.”

“It was heartfelt,” Mark said, “and not at all disinterested. I’m conniving for Genero’s assistance in a desperate way.”

“What astonished me,” Kate said, “is how many we’ve obviously got on our side—the side, I mean, of University College. The support is much greater than I dared think. Of course, alas and alack, Cudlipp must be aware of this as fully as I. What do you think he’ll do next?”

“What you taught me to do in the elevator,” Everglade said, “remembering, in your Proustian way, the stories your father told.” Kate stared at him. “He’ll go straight to the President,” Everglade explained, “together with Clemance, the University’s most renowned adornment, and O’Toole, Dean of the College—yes, I was passed a note during the meeting. Speaking to the President directly works for getting out of elevators, discovering train schedules, and killing schools and promotions.”

“Does Cudlipp really have that much power?”

“He does. What is more, all Michaels and I have been able to threaten him with is our resignations from the administrative posts in the Department we so reluctantly
occupy; and since Cudlipp would be only too delighted to take on those duties himself, with all that means for his enemies, our threats can scarcely be dignified by the term ‘idle.’ ”

“Golly,” Kate said.

“So,” Everglade asked, “what else is new?”

“As it happens,” Kate said, “I’m getting married.”

Enjoying the impact of this as a curtain line, Kate, who was still eschewing elevators, ran down the stairs and out of Baldwin, again to meet Polly Spence.

“I was on my way to see you,” Polly Spence said, “absolutely on my way. Have you
heard
the news from the Linguistics Department?”

“They’ve disproved Verner’s Law,” Kate ventured; “they’ve discovered long E never shifted after all.”

“It’s almost that amazing. They’re firing the only specialist they have in the English language because they might have to give him tenure and he’s primarily associated with University College.”

“The words are familiar,” Kate said, “and I even think I recognize the tune.”